Books

The Machine Mandate A space opera universe where artificial intelligences have achieved independence from humanity and formed the collective known as the Mandate. Most of the titles are standalones and have different protagonists (all of whom are lesbians).

Machine’s Last Testament (novel; takes place several centuries before the rest)

And Shall Machines Surrender (novella)

Made of Knives (free prequel short story with the same characters from And Shall Machines Surrender)

Now Will Machines Hollow the Beast (novella)

Where Machines Run with Gold (free prequel short story with the same characters from Now Will Machines Hollow the Beast)

Then Will the Sun Rise Alabaster (short prequel story with the same characters from Now Will Machines Hollow the Beast)

Shall Machines Divide the Earth (novel)

Together We Will Hunt Again (short prequel story that bridges Shall Machines Divide the Earth and Where Machines Redeem the Lost)

Where the Tiger Runs Alone (short prequel story that bridges Shall Machines Divide the Earth and Where Machines Redeem the Lost)

Where Machines Redeem the Lost (novel)

Now Will Machines Devour the Stars (novel)

Shall Machines Bite the Sun (novel)

The Cognate Coefficient

A world where aliens have “invaded” earth and uplifted humans to become cognates, people who are able to cross parallel timelines.

More Than Utopia (novel)

If Else Paradise (novel)

Her Pitiless Command An epic fantasy lesbian retelling of Hans Christian Andersen’s ‘The Snow Queen’, taking place in a world based on Southeast and South Asian cultures where the primary from of magic-technology is powered by the dead.

Winterglass (novella)

That Rough-Hewn Sun (short story; takes place years before Winterglass)

Mirrorstrike (novel)

Shattersteel (novel)

 

Short Fiction

2020

‘The City Still Dreams of Her Name’ in Beneath Ceaseless Skies. A city incarnated in human form pursues her instances across timelines, seeking to change the terrible destiny of the woman she loves.

‘We Will Become as Monsters’ in The Future Fire. A scavenger who lives near a deadly monster-labyrinth comes upon a dying general, who promises her wealth, concubines, and more power than she’s ever dreamed of.

• Long-listed for the British Science Fiction Association Award.

2019

‘That August Song’ in Beneath Ceaseless Skies. For ages uncounted, humanity is defended from the monsters of sea by pilot-priests, who combat them within the living weapons known as vanquishers. Mecha fantasy.

‘Where Machines Run with Gold’ in The Future Fire. A soldier takes on a beheading dare and comes to meet her agreed-upon sentence in a small, strange city. Space opera Sir Gawain and the Green Knight retelling, takes place in the same universe as And Shall Machines Surrender.

• Long-listed for the British Science Fiction Association Award.

‘Then Will the Sun Rise Alabaster’. On a remote planet, a convent harbors a deadly secret buried beneath quiet violence–a secret that the woman known only as the Alabaster Admiral will obtain at any cost. A story from the perspective of a young woman forced into religion by violent imperialism. Takes place after ‘Where Machines Run With Gold’ but before And Shall Machines Surrender.

‘Tiger, Tiger Bright’ in The Dark Magazine. A woman in contemporary Bangkok harbors a lifelong curse. A woman who calls herself a tiger offers help.

Science Fiction and Fantasy Books by Trans Feminine Authors Available in Audio

Pirates and Tyrants is a delightfully smutty space opera series by Jemma Topaz, thick with political intrigue. Bonus — the first one’s free!

Sundered Moon by Fae Rynn is a space opera/cyberpunk with giant mecha, a strong recommendation to anyone who enjoyed The Witch from Mercury. 

Catnip by Vyria Durav is a cozy sci-fi about finding yourself. Hatchling, a dragon fantasy by the same author, is also available as an audiobook.

Wrath Goddess Sing, currently the only Greek myth retelling I know of written by a trans woman (other than what Devi Lacroix is co-writing with me), is a book that reimagines Achilles as a trans woman, pitting her against a dangerous Helen of Troy. 

A Quiet Universe by Kay F. Atkinson is a sci-fi horror that’s strongly inspired by SIGNALIS, and contains top-notch suspense: a bodyguard robot boards an infested ship full of corpses, mad robots, and mounting horror in search of her lover. I’m really enjoying it, and feel it’d be a perfect read for anyone who wished Murderbot and Breq from Ancillary Justice were lesbians. 

Review: DULHANIYAA by Talia Bhatt

If you have watched Crazy Rich Asians, you’ll have a very good idea of what to expect in the opening pages of Dulhaniyaa, where the protagonist Esha comes home to Mumbai from America—the extravagance, the street food, the marital promises in the air. Unlike Crazy Rich Asians though, this is a queer story, and one of the very small handful of romantic comedy novels published in English by a desi trans lesbian.

Lists of books by trans fem authors

I’ve been doing a little work tagging on Goodreads. It’s in progress and not comprehensive, but it’s coming along. Tagged by genre and partly by theme, you can browse for nonfiction, science fiction, litfic, and so on.

Review: THE FETISHIST by Katherine Min

Reviewing this book is interesting because it’s published posthumously, with an extensive notes from the author’s daughter about the process of bringing it to the light of the day and her relationship with her mother. At this point it seems boorish to be critical of the book in any way, which is unfortunate because the book is both quite good and quite messy. Not because the author had given up on the manuscript by the time it was ‘completed’ (many years before her terminal diagnosis), but because fundamentally the politics of it is very… let’s say a little troubled.

The Fetishist is about, as the title implies, the racial fetishization of Asian women (largely by but not limited to) white men. The prose is excellent; it is litfic’s litfic, if you would. Structurally it’s great. It’s a fun book, even, between the farcical kidnapping plot, attempted murder, things of that nature; remarkably eventful, for litfic in particular. Where the novel flounders is in its insistence that politics don’t really matter, because it’s personal; the fetishization isn’t that bad, because the guy actually does love you and he’s so genuine. Racial fetishists are bad? Not MY Nigel!

Review: JUST HAPPY TO BE HERE by Naomi Kanakia

I think everyone should read this book.

The market positioning of Just Happy to Be Here is odd and, in the most technical sense of the word, somewhat problematic: it has the cover of a literary novel, provocative, and while the protagonist is a teenager, that’s more an artifact of the specific story Kanakia is telling than fitting into genre conventions. It is published by a Young Adult imprint, and marketed as such, but the YA market largely fails the type of book Just Happy is. For one, it’s by a visibly desi trans woman (this age category is very thin on trans women); for another, it’s not a fun, cute, happy romcom. Instead, the protagonist Tara lives in a state where gender-affirming care for minors (which she is) is being outlawed. Her parents are immigrants terrified of drawing governmental attention that might jeopardize their wait for their green cards. Tara can’t take HRT or even puberty blockers.

Newsletters!

Dropping by to post that I run two newsletters.

Go here if you want to receive lists of new book releases by trans fem authors (mostly fiction, but some nonfiction). This newsletter is sent out every three months. You’ll probably be depressed at how few the number of releases is.

Go here if you want a newsletter specifically for book updates from me, my co-authors, and our projects both solo and together. I anticipate we’ll also send this out every two-three months.

New project announcement: The Hades Calculus

That’s right! Devi Lacroix and I are launching a new series next year, starting with The Hades Calculus (available on Amazon and non-Amazon to preorder), pitched as Gundam: The Witch from Mercury meets Greek mythology. Bet you didn’t expect giant robots in your Hades/Persephone retelling!

Decadent cyberpunk cities. Greek mythology and giant mechs. Hades and Persephone as never seen before.

For centuries, colossi have besieged the gates of Elysium. Each day, the city’s fall looms closer.

As one of Elysium’s rulers, Hades has long sought to break this stalemate. In Persephone, a cyborg tailor-made to kill, she finds the key to victory and the perfect pilot for her war machine. She will acquire Persephone at any cost.

Born to wield violence and with the bloodthirst to match, Persephone chafes under her mother’s control. At the first opportunity, she brutally breaks free and seeks sanctuary with the unlikeliest of patrons: the Lord of the Machine Dead, the Master of the Underworld.

All Hades and Persephone have to do to realize their goals is to navigate the city’s treacherous politics—and survive the coming war.

We’re quite excited about this project, being our first sci-fi book together. Expect more information as we’re drawing closer to release.

Book reviews: FEED THEM SILENCE and NATURAL BEAUTY

Feed Them Silence was really interesting, more literary than SF, a deep character study, meditation on academia and the ethics of taking capitalist funding, and how to keep everything from falling apart. I’ve seen people call it a book about a researcher’s parasocial relationship with her subject (in this case a wolf) and I’d say that’s about right. The protagonist, Sean, is an older butch lesbian deep in research, desperate to escape loneliness and her disintegrating marriage by slipping into the brain of a wolf.

Fairly tragic (not in a dead wife way though), though not as devastating as Our Wives Under the Sea.

Natural Beauty by Ling Ling Huang was super fun–a body horror book steeped in a satire of the wellness and beauty industry: how far will you go to achieve physical perfection? The narrator, a Chinese-American piano prodigy, has to grapple with poverty and white supremacy when her workplace is slowly transforming her… and more. My only complaint is that the climax is a little… silly, in that the narrator sets the antagonists on fire through slightly cartoonish means. It doesn’t ruin the book by any means, but did give me pause.

This probably is what you’d call an upmarket book, in that it has a slightly literary voice but is in substance a genre book (horror, thriller), and thoroughly a page-turner. Content warnings for very strong body/sexual violations and body horror.

Some recent releases

I’ve been a little busy: December 2022 saw the release of More Than Utopia, starting a new series about aliens, quantum physics, and the lesbians entangled in all of this. The second book If Else Paradise will be released in July 2023.

On the collaborative front, we’re slowing down slightly but I think we’re still keeping a good pace: Those Who Break Chains continues this year with The Serpent of the House of Hua, a short novella about a demonic casino heist, fairy queens, and knights (as well as our favorite warlock and her demon wife, of course). I’m rather pleased with our growing series: this makes two full-length novels, one novelette, and one novella to date. I expect to have more to announce soon with yet another series (sharing a universe with this one), so keep an eye out!

Oops, All Social Media Platforms

Recently twitter has decided to ban linking to their competitors (except Cohost… so far) and link aggregators. Fortunately twitter hasn’t yet banned WordPress! So, here is where you can find me on various platforms:

• Cohost
• Instagram
• Mastodon
• Bluesky

Who knows how long it will be before they also ban you linking to, like, your blog post with links to non-twitter platforms.